Annabel Lee
by HecateA
Summary: I was a child and she was a child,/In this kingdom by the sea;/But we loved with a love that was more than love-/I and my Annabel Lee;/With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven/Coveted her and me. Ten Days of Percabeth, day 10, oneshot.


**Here's the tenth and final day of the Ten Days of Percabeth challenge. Thank you for following the challenge if you did, I hope you liked it. A lot of people wanted me to make the last day epic, so my overworked laptop as my witness, I tried. **

**I hope you enjoy and I thank you in advance for reading!**

**Dedication: a fry**

**Disclaimer: Me no own PJO. The poem in Italic belongs to Edgar Allen Poe.**

* * *

**Day Ten**

* * *

**Annabel Lee**

* * *

_It was many and many a year ago,_

_ In a kingdom by the sea,  
That a maiden there lived whom you may know  
By the name of Annabel Lee;_

* * *

"Annabeth?" Mr Brunner called to the blond girl.

She came forward and Mr Brunner introduced us.

"This young lady nursed you back to health, Percy. Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy's bunk? We'll be putting him in cabin eleven for now."

* * *

_And this maiden she lived with no other thought  
Than to love and be loved by me._

* * *

As Dr Bradford lectured on about the nature of man and its resonance in Hamlet, Annabeth chewed on the cap of her ballpoint pen and she flipped her attention from him, who was saying nothing that she hadn't already heard in Cabin 6, to the math homework she was finishing in advance.

There was a knock on the door and it opened without giving Dr Bradford a second to answer. Not even a second later, in burst in Piper McLean wearing a dark sweater, grey jeans, and multi-coloured beads in her hair, dragging Percy by the wrist. His eyes were hazy and he looked pale and lost.

"Can I borrow Annabeth, Dr Bradford?" Piper asked with the sweet smile that she only used in charmspeak emergencies. "I like your tie."

"Of course. Annabeth, you can collect your things." He said too quickly for it to be normal.

* * *

_I was a child and she was a child,__  
In this kingdom by the sea;  
But we loved with a love that was more than love-  
I and my Annabel Lee;  
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven  
Coveted her and me._

* * *

Annabeth wasn't told twice. She nearly left half of her things on her desk, but she wanted to keep cool. Just because Percy _looked _sick or hurt...

She took Percy's other hand and she and Piper were out of there in a second, and they'd steered up to under one of Goode's staircases, away from faculty eyes.

"What's wrong?" Annabeth asked dropping her copy of Hamlet and putting a hand to Percy's forehead. He wasn't feverish, but he definitely wasn't anywhere close.

"We were just in English class," Piper tried to explain. "And then- and then we were reading a poem and out of nowhere he just started freaking out. He kept asking where you were, and he went numb, and didn't look at anywhere and he didn't listen or reply. I got him out of there as quickly as I could."

Annabeth snapped her fingers in front of Percy's eyes, but it was like he wasn't registering the fact that she was there.

"What was the poem?" Annabeth asked, hoping that Percy wasn't going to start spewing green smoke or something.

"Annabel Lee," Piper said. "By Poe… I'm assuming you've read."

It made sense.

* * *

_And this was the reason that, long ago,__  
In this kingdom by the sea,  
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling  
My beautiful Annabel Lee;  
So that her highborn kinsman came  
And bore her away from me,  
To shut her up in a sepulchre  
In this kingdom by the sea._

* * *

She sent Piper packing. Still confused and slightly insulted, but panicky at the idea that Leo freaking _Valdez _was the sole person doing damage control back in their English class, Piper didn't put up a fight.

Annabeth took his hands.

"Percy?" She asked. "Percy? It's me, Annabeth. Percy, Seaweed Brain, are you scared?"

His eyes looked straight ahead, like a cyborg.

"I don't want to lose you," he said, his eyebrows scrunched up in worry. He looked cute most of the time, but right then he looked desperately scared and Annabeth's heart dropped and cracked like an egg dropped from a window.

"Percy, you won't lose me," Annabeth said putting their hands to his cheeks. "See? I'm right here. And my hands aren't scratched; not like in… in_ there_. We're okay. I'm okay."

The last part was what he wanted to hear.

* * *

_The angels, not half so happy in heaven,__  
Went envying her and me-  
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,  
In this kingdom by the sea)  
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,  
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee._

* * *

She talked about her English class and this and that. Slowly, Percy seemed to come back to his senses. Finally he was back to normal and Annabeth had to tell him what had happened.

"I hate this," Percy said, dropping her hands.

"You hate what?" She asked, sliding them down to his chest.

"I hate just getting _so _spooked like that. Out of nowhere, I'll just freeze up and panic inside and I can't get out because it's so scary even if on the outside everything's okay and…" He shook his head.

"Chiron warned us," Annabeth said gently. "It's PTSD; Post-traumatic stress disorder. You get the spooks like this; I get the nightmares and the screaming at night and the moodiness. Remember?"

"Duh, but I… I'm just mad because we _had _a trauma to get stressed over. We couldn't be left to be, even for a few months. I hate it because it's like the gods are never going to be happy and satisfied with us or with what they have from us. And that's going to cost us one day, like it nearly did in… in _Tartarus. _It's going to cost me you one day."

"Percy, they never sent us on these quests because of jealousy, okay? Don't think that. It's because I-you- _we _are good." Annabeth said gently. Percy went on ranting. Clearly having an episode in the middle of class, in front of his mortal friends, at school, and getting them both pulled out of class was the straw that broke the camel's back. He was having sense of humour failures. "It's just about you and me now."

"I know it is, but that doesn't change the fact that it's stupid!" He said frustrated.

"Percy, it's not stupid. It's a coping mechanism for stress; soldiers get it all the time and they make it. Godly or not, you are a soldier, and you have been through war." Annabeth said. "You can't help it that you've been through some extreme, nightmarish things and that there are triggers all around you, ready to remind you of that.

And for the record Seaweed Brain, I am Anna_beth. _Not Anna_bel Lee. _We will not crash and burn, the angels and the demons can't touch us. They never have been able to, and it's not now that they will start."

"One day they will," Percy said with the shaken look of someone who had just received a big reality check to cash in for mortality.

"Since when do we worry about 'one day'? Yesterday you weren't even minding the fact that you had a psychology test first period!" Annabeth said. "Seaweed brain, I know that you can't stop it if you don't act like you sometimes nowadays, trust me. I know. But you need to understand, despite everything going on, that you and I are forever. Do you even understand the poem aside from the part where the lover dies?"

He shrugged.

"Poe says that though she is dead, his soul is still latched to hers; he's not over a dead girl. Well you know what, our souls are still latched right now; we're not going to _have _to get over each other. We're endgame, now."

Percy swallowed with difficulty and nodded.

"I get spooked." He said. "Sometimes it's hard to believe that. Not because of you, not because of me, but because of the rest of the world."

"Yeah, I know." Annabeth said. "And it's okay, and it'll go away one day. But until then, you've got to remember that we are not Annabel Lee to get through it, because we _will _get through it."

"You and me and the stupid things our brains are doing."

"Percy," Annabeth sighed.

"I thought I was going to die, but I didn't die, and by some miracle you didn't die either, so why can't that be enough? Why can't my brain just live with the fact that it's still going, and pack away all the rest?"

"Because, then it would mean nothing." Annabeth said. "Then it wouldn't mean anything that we fell for _nine days _down Tartarus and we dealt with monsters and earthquakes and hunger and injury and seeing the dead and getting our blood drawn for Gaia's sacrifice and closing the doors of death. What hurts and what keeps coming back to us does because it _matters."_

"Can you…" Percy's face darkened. "Can you promise me that you'll keep coming back too? Because you matter, and there needs to be a balance in the good and the bad, right?"

* * *

_But our love it was stronger by far than the love  
Of those who were older than we-  
Of many far wiser than we-  
And neither the angels in heaven above,  
Nor the demons down under the sea,  
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul  
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.  
_

* * *

"I'd swear on the Styx, but we don't need more of those oaths." Annabeth said. She lifted her pinky. "Pinky promise?"

Percy shook on it.

* * *

_For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams  
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;  
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes  
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;  
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side  
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,  
In the sepulchre there by the sea,  
In her tomb by the sounding sea._


End file.
